Monday, May 6, 2013

"Jaded About Movies (Except When I'm Not)"

The more a movie tries to feel not like a movie, the less appreciate it.And, of course, vice versa.The less
a movie tries to feel not like a
movie, the more I appreciate it.

This insight came to life in my brain thirty-five thousand
feet above the earth, winging home from Paris, an extended ordeal, which, in
Business Class, is mitigated by a system that allows passengers to endure the
hours of confinement and defying gravity with the rescuing beneficence of multiple
movies.

I partook of four of them on the flight, or more accurately,
three and three-quarters, meaning that, since they turned the system off before
landing, I am unfortunately in the dark as to the resolution of “Wreck-It
Ralph.”

The third movie, I can’t remember.So you will not be hearing about that
one.(It’s amazing.People worked months on that movie, and I
have no recollection of what it was. Ah,
well.At least it ate up a few hundred
miles.)

The other two movies I watched were diametrically different,
both in style, and in intention.These
were Skyfall and Silver Lining Playbook.

Skyfall celebrates
the fiftieth anniversary of the James Bond franchise.Like all James Bond movies, Skyfall is deliriously “over the
top.”I believe there is a moment early
in the film where Bond literally falls…from the sky.And, of course, he lives.

Hoo-ray!(I actually shouted that on the plane.)

I cannot claim to have seen all twenty-three (or
twenty-five, depending on how you’re counting) Bond movies, but I imagine I’ve
seen, I don’t know, ten of them.I like
James Bond movies.By now, part of the
“Enjoyment Factor” is undeniably nostalgia; they seem so retro.They most likely use “green screen” effects
these days.But it still feels like they
don’t.

The daredevil stunts, the credulity-testing escapes, the overheated
stories of world domination, the signaturely-alluring “Bond Girls” – they may
be “Bond Women” by now, but I can barely detect the difference – the producers
concoct this recipe, they adhere to it for half a century, weathering Star Wars’s, Batmen and Matrixes, and
even with serial Bondses – we can differ on our favorites, but the most recent
fellow is growing on me – they dish up a cinematic confection of crowd-pleasing
excitement.

And the best part is, they never for a second claim that
it’s real.

It’s a movie.Or what
they once called, in the eponymously-titled film paying tribute to this
crowd-pleasing genre, a “Movie Movie.”I don’t know about you, but I’m not a
spy.Not that Bond movies bear any
resemblance to what spies actually do.Though I hardly think real spies complain about that.It probably got them a lot of girls.

Okay.A movie that
does not pretend that it’s not a
movie – I’m there!Even if James Bond
movies contain violence – which would normally mean I would never go go near them
– the mayhem is so cartoonishly exaggerated, a voilo-phobe like myself can easily
handle it.(My problem with movie
violence is I over-identify.I imagine
that happening to me.In Bond movies,
there is no chance of anything close
to that happening to me.A trap door
with alligators swimming underneath?That
just makes me giggle.)

Movie movies, I
like.Then, there’s…

Silver Lining Playbook.

Whichconcerns two
emotionally troubled twentysomethings who find each other and, eventually,
their mutual love makes them healthy.Or
at least capable of a possibly normal future together.

Okay.First, I am
married to a psychologist.Because she
knows what she knows, Dr. M has close to zero tolerance for cinematic
portrayals of the mentally messed up.For openers, that’s not what they’re like.Secondly, if there’s a therapist in the movie
(Ordinary People, Good Will Hunting), they can cure these
nutcases in two-and-a-half hours, and she knows that, for her – and every other non-movie therapist – it takes
considerably longer.To even help them a
little bit.Thirdly, though it’s an
appealing convention, love in real life does not necessarily conquer all. (Especially if it’s only in one
direction.That kind can actually make things worse.)

This is what brought to select Silver Lining Playbook on an airplane – she nixed us seeing it when
it was playing in the theaters months earlier, and I was curious to check it out.My reaction, likely affected by the fact that
I had just finished watching Skyfall…

I did not care for it.

Everybody in Silver
Lining Playbook was acting.The crazy guy, the crazy girl, the guy’s withholding
father, his hyper-anxious mother caught in the middle – all of them, trying their
darndest to convince me that I’m not watching a movie, but instead that these
people are real and their problems are real and I should care about them and be
emotionally invested in what happens to them.

Sorry.

I thought they were silly.Not James Bond silly.Bond movies
know they’re silly. And we
know.And everybody’s having a ball!

Here, I mean, it’s a movie.Which, by definition, is not real.Despite that challenging obstacle, the actors, with their swearing, their
crappy furniture, their regular speech patterns, and their crying, they’re trying to convince me that it is!

What can I tell you?I’m not buyin’ it.

Part of this falls into the category of “occupational
hazard.”Because I have witnessed things
being made, I am alive to the reality of “Action!” And “Cut!”Every scene is a distinct movie segment, with
an identifiable beginning – (“Action!”)
– and an end – when the director says “Cut!” – the scenes’ boundaries
determined, first, by the screenwriter, and later, in editing.

When they change angles?That’s from another “take”, the original “take” covering one actor, and now, it’s another.I am watching two separate performances.Nothing’s spontaneous here.These scenes were filmed over and over, until
the director thought they were right.After that, the editor, under the director’s supervision, pieced the
entire hodgepodge together.

Aside from the distancing awareness of what I’m looking at, Silver Lining Playbook’s story arc is
numbingly familiar.The guy comes home
from the institution, but he’s still acting crazy.By the end of the picture – when he expresses
his love to the girl – he sounds totally normal.If you walked in at that point – I mean, you
can’t do that on a airplane…just walk in…but in a theater – you would never
know he was previously delusional.

The man is acting his head off, and all I’m thinking
is:The transition is not believable.

One movie, I accepted on its own terms.The other, I rejected, because it insisted I pretend
it was real, and I couldn’t.

But that’s possibly just me.

And only when I’m flying.

(Though I’m writing this on the ground, and I still feel the
same way.)

2 comments:

If you were impressed by the Bond movie on an airplane screen, you would have been thrilled by it on the big screen, as they say, in a movie theatre (where people go to sit in the dark with strangers and eat million dollar popcorn).As for SLP, I tend to agree with you. There was a lot of 'acting' as opposed to 'being' on the screen. I guess it isn't a good sign when you spend your time thinking about how old Bob is looking these days.